Chapter 6
| The Story | The Authors |
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Roger soon grew tired of walking. He wasn't even sure where the city
dump was exactly. Wasn't it floating on a barge in the harbor?
he wondered to himself. So Roger decided to hitch a ride to the
dump. He stuck his thumb out enthusiastically and the very first
auto, which happened to be a pickup truck, stopped to pick him up.
Roger climbed into the cab of the '83 Ford Ranger and thanked the
driver for stopping. "I'm trying to get to the city dump." Roger explained. "Hee hee hee hee," the driver laughed an evil laugh. "We're not goin' to no dump." "We're not?" Roger asked nervously. "Naw, we're headin' for Death Valley, ain't we Rufus?" the man said to a person who was clearly not there and he spat a glob of tobacco juice out the window. "No, I don't want to go to Death Valley!" Roger cried. "Just drop me here. This is fine right here. You can just stop here and let me out here." Roger pleaded. "Naw," the man spat again. "Rufus wants some company. He wants you to come to Death Valley with us." "Aw shit." Roger sighed and slouched back in the passenger seat. | |
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Meanwhile, back in Old Boar's cave... | |
| As the recently crowned "Florence Nightingale of the Irresponsible Bourbon Drinkers' Morning-After Set," Anita had her hands full. Things One and Two were so debilitated by their hangover they were unable to rhyme (and consequently, unable to speak.) Old Boar shuffled about mumbling to himself like an Alzheimer's patient, and The Cat in the Hat (although the famous hat itself was nowhere to be seen) remained comatose upon the cold stone floor, snoring loudly, drooling in his sleep. | |
| She produced her battery powered espresso maker and set about making quadruple shots for everyone. She passed cups around to the Things and Boar, which they gratefully accepted, and poured the Cat's share down his throat. Within minutes the Cat sans Hat was sitting upright. They were all still hung over, mind you, but at least now their eyes were wide open and Anita felt sure that they would at least be able to listen to what she was about to say. | |
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Anita cleared her throat and surveyed the most bleary-eyed, pathetic
excuses for literary anthropomorphism she had ever laid eyes on as
they sat hunkered around Boar's kitchen table, useless but for the
regular infusions of java she kept them supplied with. Ah well, she
thought. It could be worse: Roger could still be here... Ahem. She
began the little speach she'd been internally rehearsing all morning.
"Er, gentlemen... We have a serious problem on our hands. Code Red." "I do not want to hear of this," replied the Hatless Cat "My head is full of rocks and piss, My eyes are full of lint and scuss; I do not like it, Sam I was." "Hey!" warned Anita, sharply, swatting at him with a fly-swatter. "None of your lip. Anyone else?" She brandished the flyswatter in the air before them. Boar and the Things said not a word. The Cat sulked into his espresso. "Now, here's the deal. There's this old man called Jake. He's supposedly been in a coma for the last twenty years. In reality he just refuses to wake up. The whole twenty years he's been asleep, he's been dreaming about sex —" she punctuated the word with a terrific thwack of the flyswatter on the table — "and his dreams have gotten so deperate, they've begun to infect reality! Everything's becoming oversexed. Roger's been unbearable, and my boss at work, and the construction workers turning the old tenements across the street from my apartment into overpriced condominiums for yuppies who themselves have become inextricably oversexed, and the dogs in the park, the beasts of the field, even the goddamn clouds in the goddamn sky have taken on certain too-familiar shapes recently, chasing after each other in the stratosphere... And it'll only get worse. Soon every interaction will occur in the realm of the sexual, the simple act of riding the subway from Point A to Point B will take on the dimensions and complexities of a Roman orgy... Oh, we have to stop him, can't you see? We have to wake him up! Otherwise the world as we know it is doomed! Not with a bang or a whimper, but with a resounding, multiple, mutual, premarital, final orgasm! We'll all go to Hell in unison!" With which solemn pronouncement Anita broke down sobbing. The others, sufficiently restored by the magic of coffee, did their best to comfort her. |
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